Choral works in focus

Discover more about new, exciting aspects of major choral works such as Bach’s St John Passion or Mozart’s C Minor Mass which have come to light during our editorial work. Or discover some less well-known, but extremely worthwhile compositions to enrich your concert programs.
Bach: Johannes-Passion von 1725
Meinrad Walter

J. S. Bach: St. John Passion 1725

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The St. John Passion was performed under Bach’s direction in Leipzig at least four times, but each time in a different form. And not all versions survive complete, so decisions need to be made for each performance nowadays. Increasingly the 1725 version with the opening chorus “O Mensch, bewein dein Sünde groß” is performed. The omission of “Herr, unser Herrscher” in this performance version is coupled with new discoveries. We hear the part of the evangelist as it was sung back then in Leipzig. In addition, highly dramatic arias such as “Himmel reiße, Welt erbebe” are heard to their best advantage.

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Uwe Wolf

Monteverdi’s Forest

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It is a repertoire from which quite different programs can be derived – both in terms of length, scoring, level of difficulty (which is moderate in many compositions), but also in terms of fundamental conception: possibilities would be to focus on either a feasible liturgical sequence or a musical exploration of different aspects of the Selva.

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Jürgen Budday

Handel’s English oratorios

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The period in which the above-mentioned works were written was a very fruitful phase in Handel’s creative output. He composed the ode Alexander’s Feast in 1735/36, Israel in Egypt and Saul in 1738/39, and Messiah followed in 1741/42. Furthermore, during this period he composed not only the oratorio L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato (1740), but also a further eleven (!) operas, including what is probably his best-known, Xerxes, and – as his very last opera of all – Deidamia in 1741.

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Werner Breig

„Thy statutes have been my songs“

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Heinrich Schütz probably regarded his last opus as an artistic statement of particular importance: he called it his “Schwanengesang” or swansong. But the work then fell into oblivion for several centuries. The edition in the Stuttgart Schütz Edition offers a unique interpretation of the “Schwanengesang” based on the surviving sources.

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